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74 thoughts on “P&Q: French Yogurt Cake”

I made mine tonight and it was quite tasty! I couldn’t find lemon marmalade (a shame!) anywhere, so I used orange marmalade with a squeeze of lemon juice to make it a little more tart. I also squeezed a little lemon juice over the individual slices, which I thought made it even better! Great recipe!

I’ve made this before-and it’s really, really good. Simple and tasty-but instead of marmalade, I topped it with vanilla pastry cream and a raspberry/strawberry sauce. Don’t skimp on the lemon zest – that’s where all the flavor comes through.

Oh man Megan, that sounds awesome with the pastry cream and strawberry sauce! I’m thinking of trying my hand at lemon curd for the first time and making the fancy version she describes. I’m excited about this recipe for sure!

I made mine with Strawberry Jam because the only marmalade I could find was orange, and we just don’t like it. It was very good. I also made chocolate mousse to go with it, but haven’t tried it with the cake yet.

My cake overbrowned. I checked it about 10 minutes early, and it was already too dark, even though the center wasn’t done yet. It looked a little burned, but it actually didn’t taste like it. I mostly trust my oven temperature, so I don’t know what went wrong. I used a pyrex pan, and I’ve had other problems with things overbrowning in pyrex. (I think – I haven’t really verified this yet.)

I posted this by accident on the earlier P&Q post so I’m copying it here since this is where I should have posted it to begin with!

I made this (twice!) the other night (the first time I doubled the almond meal by mistake.) I used cooking spray instead of butter to coat the pan. Big mistake…the bottom of the first loaf stuck in the pan. Lesson 1: BUTTER the pan. Lesson 2: the oil needs to be stirred in really well so it emulsifies. The reipe is on Epicurious with lots of posters saying they cut the oil to 1/3 of a cup. Lesson 3: this was SO MUCH better on the second and especially third day. I would wrap it up and let it sit out on your counter and enjoy it on the second or third day. I didn’t go with the orange marmalade, I made lemon curd instead and served the cake with a puddle of lemon curd. Yumbaroo!

Beth- Dorie’s pastry cream is delicious! I’ve made it ten or fifteen times now and I love it. I do add a little extra milk since it seems to be a little to thick for me, but I bet it would be a perfect addition to this recipe.

Judging by some of the comments, I’m guessing I could use a regular jam/jelly or maybe even make a lemon or strawberry curd? I’m low on money from traveling, so I’ll probably bum some jelly off my parents (as long as it’s not grape!) or make some curd. I was going to make my own lemon marmalade, but I don’t think I will have time.

Ok so Leslie posted while I was posting mine. How much spray did you use because I never butter my pans. Maybe I should for this one. And are you saying not to cut the oil? Or just to make sure it is mixed well, no matter the amount?

I baked mine in a 9 inch round metal pan. It baked for 38 minutes and came out perfect. I decided against layering it and just glazed the top with the marmalade. I have white chocolate whipped cream in the fridge chilling to garnish and toasted some almonds.

Thanks Anne! I’ll check out the recipe and try it with the cream.
I was thinking about using Vanilla greek yogurt instead. Do you think that would work well with this, or would it totally change the flavor/texture?

Carla, I sprayed the pan pretty well. I usually butter but was being lazy. And I didn’t cut the oil, just made sure it was combined well. I was just offering the FN suggestions as an alternative if anyone was trying to cut back on the fat.

I made the Riviera variation, with Greek yogurt, olive oil, and thyme. I also added a bit of rosemary. I used my long loaf pan. My pans always get a parchment or wax paper lining – at least on the bottom – to help with release. Because I ran out of time my cake didn’t get any glaze at all – my book group still loved it. I made this a few weeks ago and froze half; tonight I’m serving the second half and I’m thinking about making a glaze with grapefruit marmalade with thyme (although I was contemplating a glaze with fig preserves and thyme). Some time I’ll try this recipe in the regular version as a layer cake, maybe with a simple buttercream. This recipe is a keeper!!!

I made the riviera version too with low fat greek yogurt and thyme. So good! I used half cheapo olive oil and half really good, fruity olive oil and could really taste the effect of the good olive oil.

Ok I finally tasted it with the chocolate mousse. It is so OMG good. I want to go in and eat the entire loaf and the entire bowl right now. It’s great on it’s own, but it feels more like a dessert with the mousse.

I used lemon curd too and it was absolutley wonderful. I didn’t glaze it on, I piled it on! This bread is moist, lemony and soooo good! You must make it. My crust under the lemon curd was nice and crispy with a moist cake under that.

I hope Greek yogurt with vanilla is good because that’s what I bought to use for this cake! :) I’ve used vanilla or lemon yogurts (the kind with no fruit) in place of plain in other recipes and it’s usually good. And my favorite sugar cookies have lemon and vanilla, so I know they go together.

Actually it was the only full-fat yogurt I could find without buying the big 32 ounce size. Did anyone try this with low-fat or even fat-free yogurt?

For the Riviera variation I used Greek yogurt, mostly nonfat with a bit of lowfat stirred in. The cake was great. I can now report that it freezes and thaws beautifully. I ended up glazing it the second time around with grapefruit marmalade which I thinned with lemon juice instead of water. I chopped some thyme and heated it all together, straining the mixture right onto the top of the cake. It added a beautiful flavor note, although we loved the cake plain as well. Using nonfat Greek yogurt, olive oil, and egg substitute makes for a delicious and fairly healthy cake!

I just made mine and it didn’t rise much either. It’s rather short. And mine overbrowned on the top, I had to cover it with aluminum foil towards the end, but it’s still too brown on top. And it took about 10 minutes extra to finish baking. I used a glass pan, so maybe that contributed to the overbrowning?

Melissa – did you lower the oven temp for your glass pan – to 325 degrees? (I sound like a cooking instructor)… Mine got a “little” crust on top, but nothing that was too hard. I also noticed that it rose too much and started overflowing my pan. I just sprinkled confectioner’s sugar, since the cake was already sweet enough – and very moist. Definitely a keeper.

This is so unbelievably exciting. I have just baked mine and am so enthused I am commenting on the loveliness of the cake while it’s waiting for 5 minutes before being turned out of the pan. It’s a lovely golden deep honey color on top; no sinking, no crowning, just perfect.

Melissa, I had some overbrowning on the top as well (mostly around the edges on the top) and the very top center part was a little underdone (and this was with additional cooking time). I used a glass/pyrex pan as well. When I make this again (and I will make this again), I am going to try a metal pan and see if that helps; otherwise, I’ll tinker with oven temperatue, pan placement etc in the pyrex pan. We love love LOVED the cake anyway, and I served it to a very forgiving crowd (i.e. my parents) who didn’t seem to mind that I trimmed off the edges and warned them to avoid that raw section in the middle.

I think I need to make this again as I just didn’t love it. Not sure if I did something wrong, hmmm. Texture is a bit too rubbery for my taste. I skipped the glaze, maybe that is the problem? Molly of Orangette has a recipe in her new book too for similar cake so I might try her version to compare. Has anyone made hers yet?
Mine didn’t rise much and shrank down when it came out of oven – not very photogenic at all. :(

Ellen — suggestions for your next try at this cake:
1) Try using bleached all-purpose flour. Bleached flour generally improves the texture of cakes.
2) Rubbery texture suggests you might have overbeaten the batter and developed the gluten too much. This also might have made the cake rise less.
3) Are you sure your leavening is still good?

I’m going to make mine later today. Has anyone tried this as cupcakes? How did it work out?

My cake browned quite a bit too….but the interior was just fine and tasted great! I think I may have over mixed trying to get the oil in–because it seemed rubbery however still super moist. I dont care for jams on cakes so I think I may make this into a shortcake per Dorie’s suggestion…cant wait to try it tonight for dinner at the neighbors!

Mine’s all done and waiting to be devoured :) Baked in a dark 9×5 loaf pan… cut back the temp by 25 degrees and in 45 minutes it was nicely brown and the knife came out cleanly. My only concerns are this… 1) it sank terribly in the middle – while still in the oven – so I’ve got a very strange looking “cake” and 2) where in the world can you find lemon marmalade? LOL.

I hate that St. Patrick’s Day is on Tuesday this year – I have two posts to put up… the TwD and of course a holiday-themed one as well.

Em – my first cake sunk terribly too! And my second one was nicely risen until I put the knife in to test it, and then it sunk a little in the middle. Doesn’t matter – both of them were still wonderful.

I made this today. It was quite dense, moist and yummy. The lemon flavor was wonderful. I had less plain yogurt than I thought so I used some vanilla yogurt. I also used half coconut oil which gave a very faint tropical flavor to the cake.

Sadly I do not have the proper pan so I had to use a tube pan. It worked fine but the cake was short , only a couple inches high. I made strawberry shortcakes with it. My nearly 6yo was the only one who did not care for the cake, he deemed it too spicy.

I made these in a muffin tin, but I am not sure if they are cupcakes? or muffins. Anyway, I went with the Riviera version. I used rosemary and they were done in 20 minutes. They smell really good. We haven’t tried them yet.

I tried these as cupcakes as well, but I agree with Mary Ann… I’d probably classify them as muffins! I made the cake as a loaf as is in the book and as the muffins (baked for 14 minutes) and I actually loved them even more as muffins! So good!

Success! My mom had two slices, which tells me it’s really good. She hasn’t had much of an appetite for the past year or so, so I’m glad she enjoyed the cake. I made lemon curd, which brought out the lemon flavor even more. Has anybody tried using flavored yogurt? The leftover lemon curd is delicious with leftover yogurt.

Made this yesterday in a silicone loaf pan sprayed with cooking spray and came out easily. I found a James Keiller & Sons Three Fruits Marmalade (lemon, orange and grapefruit) and it was good (will never tell DH what I spent on it though – LOL!). The cake was good yesterday but fabulous today with coffee.

Emily Rose, I routinely sub yogurt for half of the oil in a cake. I’ll bet you could do that with this recipe. The other thing I often do is to use extra light tasting olive oil since that is monounsaturated fat, and thus healthier.

Made this Sunday and it is gone by Monday night! I couldn’t fing lemon marmalade so I used Tangerine marmalade ( the closest I could find at the store). Interesting when folding in the oil, I didn’t think it would have a smooth batter without an oil ring, but I did. Closest I had to a 8 1/2-X-4 1/2 loaf pan was a slightly rusty 500g Pain de mie avec couvericle. It is a pan designed to make sandwich bread. Not quite the same demensions but very close. Anyway, it was easy, it looked good, it smelled good, it tasted good!

I made mine in a bundt pan, for looks. I thought it was good, I didn’t use marmalade (couldn’t find lemon) so I just dusted it with powdered sugar. I think the texture came out different though. Dorie has a picture of her on her website and mine seems holier, I don’t know. It didn’t look smooth, maybe it’s from the almond meal? It tasted good though.

Rachelle, I just went and looked at the picture because I was curious. Her cake does look very smooth. Mine looked grainier. Maybe I didn’t grind up my almonds fine enough. Also, I am realizing, I didn’t blanch the almonds, I just ground them up with the skins on. I wonder if that was a mistake?

I noticed that the Epicurious recipe for Dorie’s french yogurt cake is slightly different from the one we made. Has anyone tried that one? I wouldn’t change a thing about ours, but I’m just curious about the differences.

This really is a fabulous little “cake” (or loaf). I loved it, found it moist, flavorful (lemon is one of my favorites) and just yummy. And easy! I did not have lemon marmalade so I nuked fresh lemon juice, sugar, a little water and some cream of tartar to create a hot syrup, that I drizzled on top. Very good substitute! Will absolutely do this one again, and try some of the variations above.